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DLehman's avatar

What I really find troubling about this line of thinking, Michael, is the very western mental model in superficially tackling such a complex and complicated issue as the Israeli/Palestinian issue. What you are really highlighting here is merely how left and right leaning people, primarily living in the west, view this issue and which one has the high moral ground.

You proclaim to lay down some hard facts in an effort to draw a parallel and support your position: ‘although it was admittedly one of the worst acts against the Axis powers by the Allies, it resulted in about 35,000 deaths, not the 250,000 first claimed by the Germans (Goebbles exaggerated the number for propaganda purposes), and nowhere near the 6 million of the Holocaust.’ So is the number of civilian casualties a benchmark of right/wrong? You are implying that the Allies killed only 35,000 (a drop in the bucket when compared to the alleged 250,00 or the 6 million) in this instance. Great. Let’s go with this parallel. Now, how many Israelis have been killed by Palestinians compared with the other way around? If numbers are your benchmark, I would conclude that Israelis get a higher score for Palestinian hating than Palestinians get for Israeli hating. In that vein, have you not been able to draw a similar conclusion from all your arguments that Israel is starkly anti Palestinian just as you accuse the Palestinians of being anti Jewish/Israeli/Semitic?

I see the majority of western responses trying to be on the right side of history while simultaneously excising this incident from any historical context. Apart from pointing out that Hamas is Islamist (so? Israel is Jewish and current government is on the hard right side of politics) and has been clinging to power since 2006 (Bibi has been in power for some time, too..). Do you not even take a cursory glance at Israeli/Palestinian relations before the rise of Hamas? Did the Palestinians have it better with Israel, you think, before they chose to go with Hamas? Did Hamas win hearts and minds merely because they were anti Israel? Again, this whole issue seems to be surgically removed from its historical context by the western mind and oversimplified (the victors who got to not only orchestrate events on the ground and hence, write history but dictate it to the rest of the world) and then neatly placed within liberal/left vs conservative/right buckets. I wish life were that simple; you’re either with us or against us.

I would assume this investigation is beyond the remit or interest of this writer and his audience as most of the comments relate to a quibble about jargon such as progressives/liberals and how one appropriately defines these terms. The issue at hand is nothing more than a tool to buttress one’s political leanings.

And to be clear, it’s not about maintaining a moral equivalence or qualifying the issue with a two-sided approach - as opposed to the one sided approach here. I would call for a more comprehensive view where you use your yardstick of measurement (morality; numbers vis à vis [holocaust] casualties) for a deeper and more honest view. Otherwise, you have an incomplete model of reality at best and skewed/biased at worst.

Also, I understand what the motives of the Nazis towards the holocaust were; eradication of Jews from the motherland (earth) based on a racial perspective and misplaced grievances. How can you draw this parallel here and not catch the irony of your own analogy? Have the superior Israelis/Jews, aided and abetted by the west, not done onto the Palestinians what had been done to them by the superior Nazi state apparatus (Palestine is an entity and not a country)? How can people say that the Israelis have been acting in self defence in attacking the Palestinians who are also native to the land without laying down the facts? How can you not be curious about investigating their claims? You speak of numbers and precise historical facts regarding the holocaust but I’m curious as to why you choose not to do so when it comes to the conflict happening now. The European Jews were dispossessed of their belongings and kicked out of their homes and forced to live in ghettos (fact). The Palestinians have been subjected to the same treatment at the hands of the Israelis (is this not a fact? Or is this a lesser fact?). Do you have evidence to the contrary? How can you bring the holocaust as an equivalent yet turn it on its head? Like the holocaust deniers that you bemoan, you seem to implicitly engage in the denial of the eradication of Palestine and Palestinians. This can only mean one thing, which is ideology. And your rhetoric disparages any thinking that challenges that opinion.

Yes, what Hamas did was abhorrent but if you’re quantifying and qualifying grievances on both sides of this conflict, by your own logic, Israel has much to answer for and should come out with blood on its hands.

Thought experiment: If the European Jews retaliated against the murderous Nazis by mounting guerrilla attacks, I am assuming you would be strongly opposed to that on moral grounds, correct?

I am a subscriber to your magazine and enjoy reading your books. I am not surprised, however, by your reasoning. The rhetoric I have been hearing in western circles for sone time now is that yes, the Palestinians may be at a disadvantage when it comes to Israel but they should suffer in silence or maybe use diplomatic means to raise their cause. Both have been done to no avail. What would you and all your readers do in their place? Either flee or suffer in silence? Is that the moralistic thing to do? Should they form a secular resistance rather than a religious one? Would that give their struggle more legitimacy? The PLO tried doing that, by the way..

To borrow some of your religious metaphors, is the holocaust the original sin of the west and the founding of Israel - that goes hand in hand with colonisation of Palestine and eradication of its people - its redemption? And finally, in the moralising world that you and the majority of your readers inhabit, is there a slight chance that the Palestinians do not see it that way? That would be the true mind of a sceptic..

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Jonathan's avatar

While I appreciate and agree with the article's condemnation of moral equivalency, this article makes an overly broad claim that this is a problem among "progressive left" groups. In reality, the "progressive" groups the article mentions are NOT a broad cross-section of the progressive left; they are almost *entirely* Muslim, Arab, or Palestinian! (Here, I encourage the interested reader to dig up the list of the 30 groups that signed the Harvard letter--almost all are Muslim, Arab, or Palestinian). Yes, the DSA-NYC publicized a rally, which was wrong and stupid, and already has tried to walk back from it. It is important to consider the Venn diagram--the moral equivalency, so far, is one small (Arab/Muslim/Palestinian) circle nested within a larger (progressive) circle.

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